


A Cat, A Canary, and Fuzzy Red Suspenders

by lezlemon



Category: Scott & Bailey
Genre: 1980s, Birthday, Costumes, F/F, Friendship/Love, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rocky Horror Picture Show References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27381676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lezlemon/pseuds/lezlemon
Summary: Gill and Julie have been working together for three months, and they have become fast friends. However, Julie feels something a little more than friendship for Gill, throwing her carefully compartmentalized life into disarray. It's within this context that Gill discovers that Julie's been keeping her birthday a secret from Gill...and that Julie has never seen Rocky Horror.Or, the fanfic I *had* to write after watching Rocky Horror on Halloween.
Relationships: Julie Dodson/Gill Murray
Comments: 21
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realize I don't actually know Gill's last name before it was Murray, so I've taken the liberty of using the last name Prescott, which featherxquill created for Gill in their story "Superintendent Slap" (which is fantastic - if you haven't read it, drop everything right now and read it!!).
> 
> Thanks also to TheTimeLadysWife for feedback on proper Brit-speak.

Julie Dodson stood in front of the full-length mirror, pulling at her outfit. This was not quite how she’d envisioned her twenty-fifth birthday playing out. She needed to learn how to hold her tongue around PC Gill Prescott.

In the three months since they’d first been assigned as partners, she’d come to learn that there were few things that Gill delighted in more than pushing Julie out of her comfort zone. And this was definitely out of her comfort zone. She had never been to a screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show, much less worn a corset. 

Julie shuddered. It wasn’t that she didn’t like campy productions; in truth, she thought the spectacle of it all sounded like a lot of fun. 

No, what made her feel uncomfortable was the blurring of the personal and the professional. The prospect of going to Rocky Horror with Gill felt a little bit like going to the women’s disco with the boys at work: the two spheres of her life just weren’t supposed to mix.

Julie knew it probably seemed a little rigid, but ever since starting in the police force, she had been careful to maintain hard boundaries between her work life and her social life. It was necessary and, on some level, instinctive: she knew the police condemned people who lived and loved like she did. She wasn’t planning to stop loving…or to stop working, for that matter. So, she knew she had to keep the two worlds separate. 

Her usual strategy was just to be, well, boring at work. She kept her head down and made herself as inconspicuous as possible. That could be hard sometimes, of course, given that she was usually the only woman in a room full of men. But given time and enough ignored advances, most of the guys lost interest in her. Then, she could fade into the background and just get her work done.

That is, until she met Gill Prescott. 

Gill wouldn’t let Julie fade into the background. She seemed to find Julie fascinating; Julie didn’t think she’d ever met someone who asked so many questions:

_“What’s the best shag you’ve ever had?”_

_“Where do your parents live? D’you like them? You never talk about them.”_

_“Why do you let the guys say that shit to you?”_

…It was hard to fade into the background when someone was so interested in keeping you in the foreground.

That wasn’t the real problem, though, Julie thought to herself, shifting uncomfortably in the mirror. The real problem was that Gill, with her incessant questions, her unbridled ferocity, and her piercing dark eyes, had immediately taken up hold in Julie’s heart, shattering Julie’s carefully constructed personal/professional boundary with one blow.

She found herself letting Gill in, answering her questions, sharing stories about her childhood, letting Gill drag her along on increasingly ridiculous outings. She hadn’t actually told Gill she was a lesbian, in so many words, but she was pretty sure Gill had put it together anyway. She seemed utterly unfazed by Julie’s sexual orientation, which only made Julie fall for her harder. 

But Julie wasn’t sure if she’d be as unfazed if she knew how Julie felt about her. So, she was careful not to let on too much. When she did let on more than she meant to, she’d try to create a distraction to direct Gill’s attention off of her. It seemed to be an effective strategy, generally, but it had definitely backfired last week. 

They’d been out at a pub on Friday night, drinking a little more than usual. It had been a particularly annoying week, and they had decided that they deserved to get a bit pissed. 

…

_Last Friday…_

“Fuck ‘em all. I’m getting drunk,” Gill announced as they entered the pub. “You with me?” 

Julie laughed at the determined look in Gill’s eyes and nodded. They made their way quickly through several pints each. They were both a little worse for the wear: Julie had a mild case of the hiccups, and Gill had fallen into her favorite pastime of ranting about police policy.

“—and I mean, when are they going to realize that the process actually matters?” Gill gesticulated forcefully, her eyes aflame. “I mean, when will they get that they can’t just sally in there like some half-arsed American cowboy and expect the suspect to do anything but spew out convenient lies?” 

Julie nodded, suppressing a hiccup; she knew what Gill was getting at. (This was not the first time they’d had this sort of conversation.) She’d lost the particulars of this thread a little bit, though. At the moment she was very much distracted by the way the low lights of the pub were dancing across Gill’s hair, which was loosely draped in front of her shoulders.

“That’s it, exactly,” Julie said vaguely, eyeing the way Gill’s hair played across her collarbone. She could feel buzzing between her ears and a tingling in her legs; the alcohol had clearly hit, and hard.

“You still here with me, Slap?” Gill asked.

Julie looked up and felt like the breath had been knocked out of her. Gill was looking at her, an eyebrow lifted in amusement, and she looked so poised, so radiant that it physically hurt. Julie could tell that her eyes had gone wide, that she was looking too hard, but the alcohol in her system made it hard for her to pull back into herself, to hide her interest as neatly as usual.

Julie cleared her throat and put a steadying hand on the table. “Sorry. Yes.”

“See something you like?” Gill asked, eyes sparkling.

Julie felt her brain short circuit. “Just, um, trying to think what this song’s called.”

“Time Warp,” Gill responded immediately. She giggled. “Which you’d be able to tell if you’d listened to literally any of the lyrics.”

“Hard to hear in here, you know,” Julie improvised, gesturing vaguely above them. “Bit of a din.”

“But surely you’ve seen _Rocky Horror_ ,” Gill said. 

Julie shook her head.

Gill leaned in, a delighted grin on her face. “Julie Dodson, I know what we’re doing for your next birthday.” She paused, considering. “When is your birthday? You haven’t let it slip by without telling me, have you?”

Julie grimaced privately. That’s exactly what she’d been planning on doing. She knew Gill would make a big deal about it, and Julie would rather just slide quietly into being twenty-five. “Um. Next Saturday.”

Gill leaned across the table and shoved her shoulder. “When were ya going to tell me, you cow?”

“Soon?”

“Yeah, right!” Gill laughed. “Well, you’re not getting off that easy. You’re losing your virginity for your birthday.”

Julie choked on her beer. “What?” She asked once she’d cleared her airways. She was not a virgin, although she was not about to explain that to Gill.

“Not your virginity virginity,” Gill corrected, giggling. “You know. Your _Rocky Horror virginity_.”

“Do I know?” Julie asked nervously, apprehension written across her face.

“Aw, don’t look like that, Slap! It’ll be fun. We’ll ring in your new year in style.”

…

And so that’s how, a week and a day later, Julie found herself standing in front of her mirror, fidgeting with the straps of a far-too-skimpy outfit that Gill had slipped to her on lunch break yesterday. She looked hot, if she did say so herself, but she was feeling very nervous at the prospect of showing this much skin in any sort of public setting.

She wasn’t sure where Gill had tracked down this outfit, but she had a feeling it had been made for someone with a slightly shorter torso; the black, one-piece corset thing she was wearing did not make it nearly high enough up her chest for her liking. She was decent, more or less…but barely. Gill had thrown in some body tape, and Julie had made liberal use of that. It felt strange putting tape on her skin, but she did not fancy a wardrobe malfunction.

And then there were the suspenders. Julie was sure she’d never seen anything quite so ridiculous. I mean, who’d decided suspenders were a good idea? Much less _fuzzy maroon suspenders_?

Gill had assured her that she would feel ridiculous but that that was entirely the point. Julie took a deep breath and tried to be okay with that. She reached for her coat and wrapped herself in it so that only her stocking-clad calves were visible. Then, she grabbed her wallet and a book and went to the living room to sit and wait.

In all too short a time, Gill was knocking at the door. Julie took a deep breath, stood up, and turned the knob. There was Gill on the stoop, also clad in a long coat, an absolutely shit-eating grin on her face.

“Happy birthday, Slap.”

“You had better also be wearing something equally absurd as what you gave me under that coat, Gill Prescott, or you’re turning around and going right home,” Julie said, trying for stern but mostly coming across anxious.

Gill smirked, deftly untying her coat and pulling the flaps aside. Julie caught a flash of bare skin (enough to make her breath catch in her throat) and dark lace before Gill was tying her coat closed again.

“So, am I sufficiently undressed? Can I come in?”

“Oh! Um, yeah,” Julie said, backing up to let her through. “’Course.” 

Gill stepped inside, kicking off her heels and flopping down onto the couch. “Got you something,” she said, fishing in her bag and pulling out a small gift-wrapped box.

Julie flopped down next to her on the couch. “Ooh, what’s this? Is tonight the night you finally propose?”

Gill wacked her over the head with the box. 

“Hey, ouch!” Julie exclaimed. “What was that for?”

Gill rolled her eyes and pushed the box into Julie’s hands. “Just open it.”

Julie raised her eyebrows but set about unwrapping the gift. As she pulled the box open, a string of what seemed to be genuine pearls fell into her hands. She exhaled forcefully.

“Jesus, Gill. How much did you cough up for these?”

“Picked them up secondhand. Thought they’d round out your outfit,” Gill explained, nervously pulling her hair behind her ears. “Sorry if it’s too much.”

Julie was surprised to see that Gill was blushing. (Surprised and a bit delighted—it was usually Gill unhinging Julie, not the other way around.)

“No—they’re lovely. Really. Thank you.” Julie brought the beads up to her neck, fastening the necklace with surprisingly little resistance, and grinned at Gill.

This seemed to set Gill at ease; she grinned back and got to her feet. “You ready? We should probably get going.”

Julie made a face. “Ready is not the word for it. But yeah, alright.” She tucked her wallet into her coat pocket, slipped on her heels, and the pair of them headed out into the night.


	2. The Walk

It was a pleasant September evening, cool enough for coats without being bitingly cold. There were plenty of people milling about in the dark on the main street, and Julie felt a wave of contentment wash over her. It was nice to be surrounded by people having a good time.

She was already regretting wearing such towering heels, though, and she could tell from the way Gill was hobbling that she was having similar feelings.

“You need a lift, Ms. Prescott?” Julie asked, offering Gill a supporting arm.

“I’m perfectly capable,” Gill said, but she slipped her arm into Julie’s anyway, leaning into her for support. 

“I know,” Julie said, suppressing a smile. “How much further is this place, anyway?”

“Twenty minutes or so.”

Julie groaned, bending her knees dramatically, causing Gill to tilt precariously.

“Hey, watch it, lady, or you’ll take me down with you!” Gill said accusingly.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“And here I was thinking you were the picture of chivalry, up until that little disaster.”

Julie elbowed Gill in the ribs. “I’ll gladly cure you of any illusion of chivalry.”

“Already quite cured, thank you,” Gill said lightly.

“Hey, and what’s that supposed to mean?” Julie asked, slightly affronted.

Gill just smiled mysteriously before launching into another rant about police policy. Julie rolled her eyes; Gill never seemed to feel a need to explain herself. It was one of the most infuriating and endearing things about her.

They fell into a rhythm, Julie half-carrying Gill as they walked, and Gill almost entirely carrying the conversation. In truth, Julie loved listening to Gill’s ideas about policing. Plus, she looked so alive when she got into the swing of a good and proper rant that Julie probably would’ve enjoyed watching her rant off the letters of the alphabet.

True to Gill’s word, about twenty minutes later, what looked to be a cinema came into view. At least, Julie could see tons of people milling about outside a doorway, and they seemed to be dressed at least as wildly (and scantily) as she was. That was a relief – looked like she and Gill had at least gotten the dress code right.

When they were about half a block away, Gill stopped abruptly and pulled Julie into the shadow of a dark building.

“What’s wrong?” Julie asked, looking around in alarm.

Gill put a reassuring hand on Julie’s arm. “Nothing's wrong, Slap,” she said with a gentle smile. “Just got to take care of one thing real quick,” she explained, looking down and unclasping her bag, her expression becoming downright mischievous.

“What’s that, then?” Julie asked with some trepidation.

Gill didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled a tube of lipstick from her bag and held it aloft with a triumphant grin. “Can’t have anyone forgetting you’re a virgin, now can we?” Gill asked.

“Why d’you look like the cat who’s caught the canary?” Julie asked, eyes wide. “And why do I get the sinking feeling that I’m the canary you’ve caught?”

“Because I am, and you are,” Gill said, backing Julie up against the wall of a building. “Hold still, canary.”

“Wha—” Julie began, but then Gill was lifting a hand to brush the hair off Julie’s brow and suddenly Julie had lost the ability to form sentences. 

Gill held Julie’s face steady with one cool hand and pressed the lipstick into Julie’s forehead with the other, standing on her toes and yet still somehow looking up at Julie’s face, her brow furrowed in concentration, mere centimeters from Julie’s lips. The scent of wine and something else distinctly Gill washed over Julie, and she felt her knees go a bit weak. 

And then Gill was stepping back again, and the moment was over. Julie tried to steady her breathing, slipping a hand behind her to brace herself against the wall, the bricks cold and rough against her fingers.

“Care to explain what you’ve just done to my face?” Julie asked once she’d found her voice again. “I know I’m no make-up artist, but I feel like this is a bit of an unconventional look.”

“I’ve just marked you with a great big red letter V,” Gill said with a satisfied grin, capping the lipstick and slipping it back into her bag.

“What, like The Scarlet Letter?” Julie asked nervously.

“Nah, my darling virgin canary. Think less puritan, more…cult classic,” Gill said with a flourish. “Don’t worry, it’s tradition.”

“Ah,” Julie muttered, raising her free hand to her forehead to evaluate the damage. She stopped when she felt Gill’s hand on her wrist.

“Don’t ruin my masterpiece, eh, Slap?” Gill said, an amused look on her face, pulling Julie's wrist down.

Julie opened her mouth to retort but found she had no comeback. She settled for just shaking her head at Gill in disbelief, who had the nerve to giggle. Julie noticed with a thrill of warmth that Gill still had her fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“Come on,” Gill said, tightening her grip on Julie's wrist and dragging her down the sidewalk toward the theater.

As they got closer, Julie realized that many of her fellow cinema goers were in fact even more scantily clad than she was under her coat. Julie gulped nervously and glanced at Gill, who grinned at her deviously and plunged into the crowd, pulling Julie with her.

When they reached the entryway, Gill came to a halt, turning to face Julie, eyes wide.

“I’ve just realized—we’ve still got our coats on!” Gill crowed. 

“Right,” Julie said nervously, shuffling her feet and crossing her arms protectively. She’d somewhat ridiculously been hoping that Gill might forget about this part until they were in the darkness of the theater itself. Gill seemed to pick up on Julie’s discomfort.

“You alright?” She asked in a much softer voice, stepping in closer and fixing her brown eyes on Julie’s. “We can leave the coats on, if you’d rather.”

“Well, that’d defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?” Julie asked uncomfortably.

“Maybe. Although…” Gill trailed off, a dangerous sort of smirk on her face. 

“What?” Julie asked nervously. She’d learned to be wary of that smirk; it usually preceded a particularly creative bout of teasing.

“Well, you could always just show me your outfit later. Do me a little strip show.” She bit her lip, eyes glinting with mischief.

Julie raised her eyebrows at Gill skeptically, whose mouth was working in a clear effort not to laugh. Julie felt herself getting swept up in the humor of the situation, too, her anxiety falling away as she watched Gill fight to maintain composure.

“Mm, and you think you could handle that, do ya?” Julie asked, rapping her fingers on her forearm and fixing Gill with a stern look. “Keep a straight face and all?” 

Gill dissolved into giggles and Julie felt her façade crumbling, too, a grin pulling at the edge of her lips. “Didn’t think so,” she said, nudging Gill playfully before dissolving into giggles herself at the sight of Gill, who was practically doubled over with laughter. 

“Well?” Gill asked after a few moments, panting and wiping her eyes. “Are we doing this?”

“Yeah,” Julie said, feeling suddenly brave. “We’re here, aren’t we? We probably look more out of place in our coats than we will in these glorified knickers you’ve got us in.”

Gill bit her lip. “Fair point.”

They shared a nervous look. It was one thing to say it; it was another entirely to actually do it.

“You first,” Julie said.

“Why me?” Gill exclaimed.

“Hey, let’s remember whose mad idea this was, shall we?”

Gill rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, reaching for the knot at her waist.

And then Gill was untying her coat and slipping it off her shoulders before Julie had even given a second thought as to what that meant, how much of Gill’s skin would suddenly be visible. As such, she was completely blindsided by the surge of lust that charged through her. 

Gill looked fucking _hot_.

“Jesus, Gill,” Julie breathed before she could stop herself. 

“What d’you think?” Gill asked, her cheeks a bit pink, smoothing her hands across her corset nervously. “Am I ridiculous?”

“Not at all,” Julie managed, her voice a bit strangled. Gill was still looking at her anxiously, searching her face for signs of approval. Julie knew she needed to say something reassuring, but she was afraid what might come out of her mouth if she opened it. She swallowed, trying to get a grip. “You look great. Really.”

Gill relaxed. “Damn right I do,” she pronounced, lifting her chin. Julie did her best to suppress an amused smile. Gill’s pride was as endearing as it was (occasionally) maddening.

“C’mon, Slap,” Gill said, leaning forward to pull at the sleeves of Julie’s coat. “Your turn.”

Julie gulped. “Right,” she said, frozen in place. Now it came to it, she couldn’t seem to will her hands to move.

“Here,” Gill offered, reaching for the knot at the front of Julie’s coat, looking up into her eyes for permission. “May I?”

Julie nodded her assent, her stomach swooping as Gill slipped the knot loose and gently pulled the coat over Julie’s shoulders.

Julie shifted nervously as Gill’s eyes traced the length of her torso. Between Gill’s gaze and the cool night air ghosting across her bare skin, she felt very exposed. Especially since Gill still hadn’t said a word, and her face was cast in shadows, expression impossible to make out.

“Will I do?” Julie asked when she couldn’t take it anymore.

“’Course you’ll do,” Gill said, lifting her eyes to meet Julie’s. Her expression was tender. “You’re lovely.”

Julie felt herself blushing. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected Gill to say—a smart remark of some kind, maybe—but she certainly hadn’t expected open affection, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Gill didn’t usually do warm and fuzzy.

“Thanks,” Julie managed, fiddling anxiously with the pearls around her neck.

“And your costume was clearly chosen by someone with excellent taste,” Gill said, her mouth twisted in a smirk.

“That so?” Julie asked, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. It was a bit of a relief to get back to this more familiar territory of mutual ribbing. “Can’t have been you, then.”

“Hey!” Gill responded, looking offended. “I’ve got great taste.”

“Mm, debatable,” Julie said. “Shall we?” She offered her arm up to Gill, who glared up at her ferociously before threading her arm through Julie’s.

“I have so got good taste,” she insisted as they walked inside.

Julie suppressed a smile. “Alright, fine. You’ve got good taste.”

“Thank you.”

“Bit of a cheap skate, though.”

Gill whipped her head to stare accusingly up at Julie. “Excuse me, lady, I paid an arm and a leg for that little number you've got on there!”

“Can’t have done,” Julie said lightly, enjoying the look of outrage on Gill’s face. “I mean, you bought all of one square centimeter of fabric. How much can that have cost, really, when it comes down to it?”

Gill dug her elbow into Julie’s side. “Ungrateful,” she muttered under her breath, but Julie could tell she was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise we'll actually get to the show itself some day. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this first installment! It's election day here in the states, and I felt like I needed to put *something* loving into the world today. More to come soon, I hope!


End file.
